Roseanna White - Roseanna M. White

Word of the Week – Crucial

by Roseanna White | Aug 5, 2019 | Word of the Week

If you saw my post a few weeks ago on excruciating/crucifixion, you might just look at the word crucial and say, “Well, huh. That has that cruc root in it too!”

And you’d be right. Crucial also has the same root, which literally means “cross” in Latin. But in the case of this word, we actually owe Francis Bacon thanks for our meaning of “critical, of the highest importance.”

You see, in addition to being a torture device, a cross was also a very simple form used for practical things like signposts. In his work, Instantius Crucis in 1620, Bacon takes the literal signpost and its Latin word and uses it metaphorically–when you see a signpost, you know to pay attention, right? Following the right direction will be of the utmost importance to where you end up on a journey.

Well, by the 1730s English had adopted the literal meaning of crucial–shaped like a cross. And by 1830, the metaphorical meaning had come along too. I always find it interesting when the later, symbolic meaning has completely overtaken the literal one in modern speech!

Word of the Week – Adept

by Roseanna White | Jul 29, 2019 | Word of the Week

Did you know that the word adept is linked to alchemy?

Yeah…neither did I.

Adept is from the Latin adeptus, literally meaning “having attained” and was introduced into English in the Middle Ages among alchemists. If you showed particular knowledge of this art, you were known as “an adept.”

Over the years, adept broadened to include anyone who exhibits a high level of skill at something, though for quite a while it was only a noun used for the person, not an adjective (interesting, since the Latin word is an adjective). Also interesting to note is that adept implies a natural and acquired ability, as opposed to expert, which implies experience and practice.

Word of the Week – Confiscate

by Roseanna White | Jul 22, 2019 | Word of the Week

When I think about Roman tax collectors, I admit that most of what I know has been gleaned from the Gospel passages dealing with them, LOL.

But did you know that tax collectors in Roman days would collect all the taxes in baskets woven from rushes? The Latin word for this basket was fiscus.

See where I’m going with this? Yep. Quite a lot of English words dealing with money have the -fisc root in there, the most obvious one being fiscal. I had no idea that it was because of the basket used to collect tax money!

Even more interesting is that it’s the same root in confiscate. Because, of course, if you didn’t pay those taxes, the government agents had every legal right to confiscate your money. Our English word does come directly from the Latin. It was used in English strictly for seizures of property of criminals, which would go into the treasury, until the 1800s, when it took on a broader sense of any seizing, whether by authority or as if by one.

Word of the Week – Lackadaisical

by Roseanna White | Jul 15, 2019 | Word of the Week

This seems like a nice word for the middle of summer, doesn’t it? We know it as meaning “lazy, languid.” Not always a good thing, but on a summer day, you might be inclined to give it less negative connotation, right?

This word has a fun history, though! It dates to the 1700s but is inspired by an expression of centuries gone by. Namely, when someone wanted to express regret for a failure, they would say “Alack the day!” Which is more or less saying they’re sorry that day happened. (I’ve had a few of those…)

Well, this eventually became the word lackaday. And if you used this word too often, you came to be known as lackadaisical.

It’s worth noting that lax is a completely different word with a different history, though it’s thought that the similar sound may have influenced our modern meaning of the lackadaisical a bit.

Thoughtful about . . . Different Rooms, Same House

by Roseanna White | Jul 11, 2019 | Thoughtful Thursdays

I’m in the midst of reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis . . . something I can’t believe I’ve never read before. And something I’ve already been nodding along with so much it’s a wonder my head hasn’t come loose. 😉 Given that the release of The Number of Love has also triggered several emails to me about this (in an awesome way!), I wanted to take some time to address the topic of [brace yourself] our faith backgrounds and denominations. (Still with me? LOL)

If you’ve read The Number of Love–or, frankly, A Song Unheard–then you know that these particular characters, being Belgian in the early 1900s, are Catholic. This wasn’t something that was debatable–at the time in question, something like 98% of Belgians were Catholic. When I realized that writing accurate characters would mean writing Catholic characters, I admit to a bit of fear. NOT because I have an issue with Catholicism. But because (1) I had no idea if it would fly with my publisher and (2) I didn’t want to mess anything up.

My background: I grew up in the United Methodist Church. When I was in high school, my dad, as a certified lay speaker, filled in as a pastor to 2 churches in a 3-church charge to relieve the burden on the actual pastor assigned to them, who was having medical issues. (Yes, this is important, LOL.) I attended St. John’s College, which has no religious affiliation, but which, in reading the “Great Books of Western Civilization,” spends an entire year studying the Bible and early Christian philosophers, all the way through Luther. (Sophomore year forever, woo!! LOL)

During college, my husband and I began attending a Seventh Day Baptist church that my dad found and visited first–when he was filling in as a pastor, he preached a series on the Ten Commandments and felt a conviction about the Sabbath that soon spread to the rest of us. When we moved home after college, my family actually decided to plant an SDB church in our area, as the only Sabbath-keeping option was Adventist, which wasn’t what we were looking for. We’re still there. 😀

So, here I am. I keep the Sabbath in a division of the Baptist church. I know that makes me weird, LOL. Pretty much all of my friends from college are Catholic (some were at the start, some converted during or after college). My background is UMC. I’ve read and studied about the history of the church, the Judeo-Christian world in general, and have read many of the early church fathers’ writers.

My conclusion? C.S. Lewis had it right: Christianity has a lot of rooms in it. But they’re all in the same house–whether Catholic or Protestant, Methodist or Baptist, no matter what day we worship. It’s important to pick a room because that becomes our community. But it’s also important to remember that there’s something common at our core that is MORE IMPORTANT than any of the differences.

I absolutely love that I’ve been getting emails from Catholic readers asking me if I’m also Catholic, because my treatment of the faith of Margot and the Eltons in The Number of Love is so authentic, so real to their own experience, and so different from what is usually portrayed in Christian fiction. The fact that I’m getting these questions means I did my job well, and that my immense respect is coming through. While I’m not Catholic, some of dearest friends are, and their faith is not only deep and genuine, it permeates every corner of their lives–and I love that. I had one of these dear friends from college read my manuscript while it was still in edits to make sure I didn’t get anything wrong. She had a few corrections to the scenes where they’re leaving mass, to my terminology, but I’m happy to report that the faith aspect itself met with her full approval.

I also think it reflects well on my publisher that never once did they even question this part of any of my books. While I’d heard stories (in years gone by) of publishers insisting that no denominations could be mentioned, certainly no Catholicism could be shown, this wasn’t at all my experience. In fact, when I said I had changes to make that aspect more authentic, based on the advice of my Catholic friend, they were excited I’d taken that step to make sure we were portraying this accurately.

My early fears, it seems, were unfounded. And isn’t that the way of fear? It tries to convince us not to do the hard thing, the unknown thing…the right thing. But I’m so glad I didn’t listen to it. Because I absolutely love that this book has opened up conversations about how, despite the differences, our faith rests on the SAME solid foundation–Christ. I love that I got to explore Catholicism more and have a series of amazing conversations with my friend Rhonda (who is also an amazing author–unpublished but on her way! You can check out her new website at www.RhondaFranklinBooks.com). I love that non-Catholic readers have commented in their reviews about how the portrayal of the faith of Margot and Dot and Drake made it approachable and relatable to them.

We have differences, yes. We have to choose which room to settle in–and sometimes change rooms when we’re unsettled by something our chosen denomination has decided to do. We have to follow our conscience and find the place that makes our faith bloom and grow. But we also have to remember that we’re still in the same house. That we’re all Christian. That it’s our foundation–Christ–which matters most.

We have to remember that the unknown, the unfamiliar, the strange, the thing that makes us fear is something we should seek to understand, not something we should tear apart.

I love that I have, and hear from, readers of all sorts of backgrounds. I love that I have friends in those backgrounds too. I love that I have the opportunity to explore how faith looks through each of those lenses. And I love that one of the things my husband and I are passionate about–community and unity among and between the different rooms in God’s house–has found a voice in these stories. I honestly didn’t intend it. I was just writing the story, LOL. But then, that’s what makes it all the more fun. And, I think, all the more authentic.

What are you thoughts on the divisions between us? On ecumenism? Do you enjoy reading stories that show characters in a different side of our shared faith?